This is a semester of Constitutional Law in 20 minutes.
Category Archives: History
The NRA Helped Defend Black Americans from the KKK
by Ann Coulter, based on the book Negroes With Guns by civil rights hero Robert F. Williams:
Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.
(Contrary to what illiterates believe, the KKK was an outgrowth of the Democratic Party, with overlapping membership rolls. The Klan was to the Democrats what the American Civil Liberties Union is today: Not every Democrat is an ACLU’er, but every ACLU’er is a Democrat. Same with the Klan.)
In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks — even freemen — could not own guns.
Chief Justice Roger Taney’s infamous opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford circularly argued that blacks could not be citizens because if they were citizens, they would have the right to own guns: “[I]t would give them the full liberty,” he said, “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
With logic like that, Republicans eventually had to fight a Civil War to get the Democrats to give up slavery.
Alas, they were Democrats, so they cheated.
After the war, Democratic legislatures enacted “Black Codes,” denying black Americans the right of citizenship — such as the rather crucial one of bearing arms — while other Democrats (sometimes the same Democrats) founded the Ku Klux Klan.
For more than a hundred years, Republicans have aggressively supported arming blacks, so they could defend themselves against Democrats.
The original draft of the Anti-Klan Act of 1871 — passed at the urging of Republican president Ulysses S. Grant — made it a federal felony to “deprive any citizen of the United States of any arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property.” This section was deleted from the final bill only because it was deemed both beyond Congress’ authority and superfluous, inasmuch as the rights of citizenship included the right to bear arms.
Under authority of the Anti-Klan Act, President Grant deployed the U.S. military to destroy the Klan, and pretty nearly completed the job.
But the Klan had a few resurgences in the early and mid-20th century. Curiously, wherever the Klan became a political force, gun control laws would suddenly appear on the books.
This will give you an idea of how gun control laws worked. Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.
How’s that “may issue” gun permit policy working for you?
The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws and proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence — including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.
A World War II Marine veteran, Williams returned home to Monroe, N.C., to find the Klan riding high — beating, lynching and murdering blacks at will. No one would join the NAACP for fear of Klan reprisals. Williams became president of the local chapter and increased membership from six to more than 200.
But it was not until he got a charter from the NRA in 1957 and founded the Black Armed Guard that the Klan got their comeuppance in Monroe.
Williams’ repeated thwarting of violent Klan attacks is described in his stirring book, “Negroes With Guns.” In one crucial battle, the Klan sieged the home of a black physician and his wife, but Williams and his Black Armed Guard stood sentry and repelled the larger, cowardly force. And that was the end of it.
As the Klan found out, it’s not so much fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.
The NRA’s proud history of fighting the Klan has been airbrushed out of the record by those who were complicit with the KKK, Jim Crow and racial terror, to wit: the Democrats.
In the preface to “Negroes With Guns,” Williams writes: “I have asserted the right of Negroes to meet the violence of the Ku Klux Klan by armed self-defense — and have acted on it. It has always been an accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to enforce order, the citizens can, and must act in self-defense against lawless violence.”
Contrary to MSNBC hosts, I do not believe the shooting in Florida is evidence of a resurgent KKK. But wherever the truth lies in that case, gun control is always a scheme of the powerful to deprive the powerless of the right to self-defense.
Why Europe Soared in the 50’s and Collapsed in the 90’s! (Video)
Dick Morris narrates this important lesson of history.
Nancy Reagan Visits President Reagan on 8th Anniversary
Nancy Reagan commemorates the 8th year of President Reagan’s death.
D-Day. June 6, 1944.
New Obama slogan “Forward” Also Title of Several European Communist Publications
Considering that Dad was an outspoken Communist, mom was a “Critical Theorist” (that’s Marxism on steroids folks), his childhood mentor Frank Marshall Davis wrote for CPUSA publications, as did David Axelrod’s parents, and considering his long time affiliation with communist bomber Bill Ayers and self proclaimed Marxist Jeremiah Wright; I am sure that this just just a coincidence.
The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.
Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name “Forward!” or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called “Forward (generic name of socialist publications).”
“The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications,” the online encyclopedia explains.
The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.
The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word “Forward” with the “O” having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign’s official beginning.
There have been at least two radical-left publications named “Vorwaerts” (the German word for “Forward”). One was the daily newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany whose writers included Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky. It still publishes as the organ of Germany’s SDP, though that party has changed considerably since World War II. Another was the 1844 biweekly reader of the Communist League. Karl Marx, Engels and Mikhail Bakunin are among the names associated with that publication.
East Germany named its Army soccer club ASK Vorwaerts Berlin (later FC Vorwaerts Frankfort).
Vladimir Lenin founded the publication “Vpered” (the Russian word for “forward”) in 1905. Soviet propaganda film-maker Dziga Vertov made a documentary whose title is sometimes translated as “Forward, Soviet” (though also and more literally as “Stride, Soviet”).
Conservative critics of the Obama administration have noted numerous ties to radicalism and socialists throughout Mr. Obama’s history, from his first political campaign being launched from the living room of two former Weather Underground members, to appointing as green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist.
Barack Obama and the Communist Party
This is a partial long list of the long ties with active and dedicated communists Barack Obama has had since he was a boy. The interesting thing is that much of this information is in Obama’s own books, but the elite media doesn’t wish to report it.
Follow the link below:
http://keywiki.org/index.php/Barack_Obama_and_the_Communist_Party
Dr. Milton Friedman on the History of Socialism and The Road to Serfdom
Albert Einstein on Christianity
Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student : Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Is satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor: Where does satan come from ?
Student : From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
P.S.
I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?
Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.
By the way, that student was Albert Einstein.
Prager University: How the Vietnam War Was Won and Lost (video)
Obama in ’08: If Govt Mandated H’care Govt Could Mandate Buying A House (video)
Barack Obama on the Ellen DeGenerous Show in 2008:
If mandating that everyone could buy healthcare would solve the healthcare problem, than government could just mandate that everyone should buy a house to solve homelessness. It isn’t that people don’t want healthcare, they can’t afford it.
American School Books Already Re-writing 9/11 Attacks: Attackers Not Muslims…..
Who didn’t see this one coming? Your Democrat Party union controlled schools at work….
Drew Zahn:
Who perpetrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – a group of men merely fighting “for a cause,” or a band of radical Muslims bent on violent jihad?
According to a new, comprehensive study of 6th-12th grade textbooks used by schools across the country, America’s children are being taught a very different answer to that question than many alive to witness 9/11 remember.
The non-profit organization ACT! for America Education studied 38 textbooks from popular publishers like McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin, for example, to determine whether American schoolchildren are being taught the truth about Islam and its role in 9/11.
The report, titled “Education or Indoctrination? The Treatment of Islam in 6th through 12th Grade American Textbooks,” compares what it found in the textbooks with 275 historical sources, listing 375 footnoted citations, to conclude that America’s textbooks are laced with “historical revisionism.”
“This report shines a bright light on a pattern of errors, omissions and bias in the textbooks reviewed,” explained ACT! for America Education founder Brigitte Gabriel in an email. “To give you just one example of the errors our research uncovered, in discussing the 9/11 attacks, the textbooks typically fail to mention the perpetrators were Muslims or that they acted in the cause of Islamic jihad. In one book the terrorists are portrayed as people fighting for a cause.
“In just a few years after Sept. 11,” she continues, “the history of what happened on that tragic day was rewritten in our school textbooks. Omitting this vital information, that jihad was the motivation for the attacks, makes it difficult, if not impossible, for today’s young teens, who don’t remember 9/11, to really understand what happened that day – and why.”
According to the executive summary of the report, “The full reportreveals a pattern of historical revisionism, omissions and bias in the presentation of all aspects devoted to Islam in these textbooks. These aspects include its theology and doctrines, its role as a world religion, its ongoing struggle with Western tradition and its intrinsic anti-Semitism.”
The summary continues, “Textbook errors identified in the report range from egregiously false historical statements to significant omissions and subtle half-truths. Some are blatant and obvious, others are subtle and deceptive. The errors in these textbooks are not grammatical or typographical. They are substantive, significant and often repetitive.”
For example, the report notes the textbook “World History: Patterns of Interaction,” published by McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin in 2007, glosses over the violent birth of Islam and paints its founder, Muhammad, in a glowing light.
“In Medina, Muhammad displayed impressive leadership skills,” the textbook asserts. “He fashioned an agreement that joined his own people with the Arabs and Jews of Medina as a single community. These groups accepted Muhammad as a political leader. As a religious leader, he drew many more converts, who found his message appealing.”
But did Muhammad win converts among and build a peace accord with the Jews? The study’s founders cite several sources and recorded histories in asserting this description is a bald-faced lie.
“This language is a gross falsification of the relationship between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina,” the report states. “Muhammad … expelled two of the Jewish tribes from Medina and destroyed the third, beheading the men and selling the women and children into slavery. This important and essential historical fact of the Medinan period is commonly omitted in the textbooks reviewed, and it is impossible for students to accurately understand the rise of Islam without it.”
Joseph Stalin on America’s Greatness
Photo via Newsbusters.
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed. – Joseph Stalin
Flashback July 2009: How Steve Schmidt blew up the McCain campaign and is attacking Sarah Palin to keep the heat off of himself.
Editor’s Note: Since Steve Schmidt is in the news for his lies portrayed in the film “Game Change” it seemed like an appropriate time to go back to my old college blog and repost what I wrote about him early on.
From the beginning of Steve Schmidt’s and Nicole Wallace’s lies starting as early as October 2008, campaign staffers have gone on the record setting the record straight:
Tim Crawford
Jason Recher
Randy Scheunemann
Meg Stapleton
Tom Van Flein
Doug McMarlin
Andy Davis
Patrick Hynes (Whose name does not appear on a current list going around the internet but wrote a piece expressing such in 2009)All have gone on the record saying that Schmidt’s allegations are lies. Is it any surprise that Schmidt is portrayed as the hero of the film? Senator McCain himself has gone on the record stating in no uncertain terms that Schmidt’s allegations in the film are nonsense. There is another high level staffer who worked for McCain who made it very clear to this writer privately that Schmidt was the problem in the campaign and is just not truthful. I wish said staffer would go public, but has chosen not to.
Aside from covering up for their loss to a half of one term Senator with no executive experience and the dreadful communications strategy Schmidt and Wallace engineered for the campaign, Schmidt, as you will see below, has had a long term hostility for religious conservatives; Wallace worked for CBS and is a long time personal friend of Katie Couric. Considering Schmidt’s and Wallace’s previous record, it is obvious that these two high level staffers were not properly vetted and ultimately Senator McCain is responsible for the mistake of hiring them in the first place.
In September 2009 I wrote a followed up article to the piece below when Sarah Palin herself commented on the false allegations – McCain’s communications machine was incompetent. Liberal McCain staffers had a hostility to Palin’s base and thus misjudged it. May have cost them the election – LINK. Worth the time to read to be sure.
Note – I just saw this interview of Nicolle Wallace on the Rachel Maddow Show saying that Governor Palin has not talked about policy since the end of the 2008 campaign. This is a prime example of the level of dishonesty that we have even in GOP circles. Sarah Palin has taken substantive positions on her web site, on her PAC web site, in the Wall Street Journal, and in countless interviews with Greta Van Susteren and Chris Wallace who are not softball throwers by any stretch. Chris Wallace even said last fall that he threw every policy question in the book at Palin and she was not hit each one out of the park. Other web sites such as PalinTV have lists of her positions along with explanations, sourced evidence and video. This very writer has reported on several of the policy positions and predictions that Sarah Palin has staked out and her predictions about ObamaCare, food and energy, inflation, monetary policy, and other issues were well ahead of the curve.
***********
Everything below is from my old college blog, July 2009:
How Steve Schmidt blew up the McCain campaign and is attacking Sarah Palin to keep the heat off of himself.
Is Sarah Palin is the biggest threat to the corrupt, big government, crony capitalist kickback establishment culture in modern political memory? But what about Ronald Reagan…– While eventually Ronald Reagan was able to create a massive power-base from the ground up with massive popular support, he never went after the elite media or after bad apples in the GOP like Governor Palin has.
With lobbying, corruption, and crony favors in Washington now at an all time high the Democrats have become the party of Wall Street, corrupt crony capitalist, big government “A”; and while there are still some honest hold outs (Bachmann, DeMint, Paul, Sauder, Pence, etc) much of the GOP leadership is still the party of big, corrupt, crony capitalist government “B”. The exit polls in the last election showed this very clearly when voters said that the Republican Party used to stand for something but had lost their way.
Voters had learned that most Republicans in Congress circa 2008 were not the same stock that took over Congress in 1994 and worked so well with President Clinton in 1996 and 1998 to balance the budget, reign in spending, cut taxes and pass the hugely successful (and popular) welfare reform package that helped so many people get back to work. It is no secret that John Kasich, the GOP House Budget Chairman who was the architect of that success has been none too pleased with the House Republicans’ lack of leadership and financial discipline since 2004.
After taking devastating electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008, some wings of the Republican Party still have not learned their lesson. For example: Eight Republicans voted for the 1300 page, corporate favor and pork lined energy tax bill that amounts to the largest tax increase in U.S. history. A bill that almost no one had read when they voted for it.
Members of that big government wing of the Republican Party talk about small, common sense government at election time, but history has proved beyond doubt that they do not govern that way. While not at election time the big government wing bashes the more Reaganite and fiscally responsible wing of the GOP in the media. Of course, the elite media being very hostile to conservatives, goes along with such bashing gleefully. John McCain was the elite media’s favorite Republican because he was happy to be used as a tool to bash people in his own party. John McCain used to say that the elite media was his constituency. McCain learned just how far that gets you when you run against a far left Democrat. McCain was praised by the elite media until the primary battle was over and hours after McCain had the nomination secured the NY Times (in an article that got them sued for libel) printed a baseless and unsourced thinly veiled allegation that McCain was having an affair with a 40 year old lobbyist. That was just the beginning (LINK).
Did the big government wing of the GOP learn it’s lesson in the face of two stark defeats in recent election history? The big government wing seems desperate to stop another 1994 like “Republican Revolution” and is back to currying favor with the elite media by bashing conservatives. The target of targets for months has been Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Vanity Fair published an unsourced, half truth filled attack piece on Palin (LINK) by Todd Purdum that has been refuted/exposed reasonably well by National Review (LINK) and the Weekly Standard (LINK). Todd Purdum wrote a similarly unsourced nasty hit piece on the Clintons late in the last primary (LINK) [when you follow the link also be sure to compare the Obama picture with the Clinton picture which presents a narrative all it’s own – Editor].
Here is what Bill Clinton had to say about Purdum and about some of the elite media’s biased coverage (LINK with audio):
“[He’s] sleazy,” he said referring to Purdum. “He’s a really dishonest reporter. And one of our guys talked to him . . . And I haven’t read [the article]. There’s just five or six blatant lies in there. But he’s a real slimy guy,” the former President said.
When I reminded him that Purdum was married to his former press spokesperson Myers, Clinton was undeterred.
“That’s all right– he’s still a scumbag,” Clinton said…
“You know he didn’t use a single name, cite a single source in all those things he said.. It’s just slimy.
It’s part of the national media’s attempt to nail Hillary for Obama. It’s the most biased press coverage in history. It’s another way of helping Obama. They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn’t do anything about it. The first day he said ‘Ah, ah, ah well.’ Because that’s what they do– he gets other people to slime her. So then they saw the movie they thought this is a great ad for John McCain–maybe I better quit the church. It’s all politics. It’s all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don’t think anything about it.”
“But I’m telling ya, all it’s doing is driving her supporters further and further away– because they know exactly what it is– this has been the most rigged coverage in modern history– and the guy ought to be ashamed of himself. But he has no shame. It isn’t the first dishonest piece he’s written about me or her.”
Clinton goes on to say exactly how a piece like this gets generated. A writer decides that they want to write a hit piece, talk to a few political enemies of that person and report every allegation against them as fact with no attempt to present some objective truth. In fairness, while the Clinton’s do not always tell the truth, he is spot on in these comments. When Hillary Clinton’s communications advisor Howard Wolfson says repeatedly that they have to come on Fox News to get a fair shake, when Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity are going after NBC News for their bias against Hillary, well you know it’s bad. Hillbuzz and PUMAPAC, both sites of those who supported Clinton in the campaign, have done a meticulous job of reporting on the outrageous media bias against Hillary and Governor Palin.
Enter Steve Schmidt
When asked by NBC news about his “sources” Purdum said , “I don’t want to get into sources and methods”. Of course he doesn’t. Politico.com was able to track down some of the unsourced comments back to former McCain chief campaign strategist Steve Schmidt (LINK).
Politico:
The vitriol also suggests the degree to which Palin remains a Rorschach test not simply to Republicans nationally but within a tight circle of elite operatives and commentators, many of whom seem ready to carry their arguments in 2012. Was Palin a fresh talent whose debut was mishandled by self-serving campaign insiders, or an eccentric “diva” who had no business on the national stage?
Politico’s instincts are spot on, and it is very likely Steve Schmidt who is fueling the “hate Palin” flames behind the scenes in the elite media.
So why would Schmidt and a handful of other big government Republican’s want to keep attacking Sarah Palin? There is a long list of reasons, but let’s start with Schmidt.
Schmidt was on the verge of winning the election for his candidate until McCain suspended his campaign to help pass the TARP crap sandwich bailout bill. Up until that weekend McCain/Palin’s numbers were on the rise in spite of being outspent by the Obama campaign. Sarah Palin gave the most effective political speech at a convention in 30 years, and John McCain said at the convention that he was going to name names, the corrupt and the pork spenders were going to be outed by name and he promised that we would “know who they are”. McCain wasn’t serious. When McCain voted for that bailout bill with hundreds of pork amendments on it, it was if he took a stake and drove it through the very heart of his own brand. The “maverick” fight the corrupt spending brand for the McCain ticket was destroyed. All credibility was lost. The emperor had no clothes.
The number one rule of any campaign is to never, ever, ever violate your own brand and the McCain campaign did just that with Steve Schmidt at the helm. Schmidt either created a campaign brand that wasn’t honest, or he failed to keep his candidate from sabotaging the campaign brand, both of which means that Schmidt should never run a campaign again. If McCain was dead set on sabotaging the campaign brand Schmidt should have resigned to help save his career.
This writer believes that suspending the campaign and the decision for McCain to support the bailout was supported by Schmidt and he didn’t make the connection that he was about to trash his own brand. We would know if Schmidt had fought hard with McCain to keep him from those actions because it would have been leaked [by the way what is stopping McCain from naming names now, the corruption and corporate favors from Congress now are off the chart, where is the outrage? – editor]
Schmidt is trying to keep the focus off of his failure by keeping the ball on Palin and he hopes that by continuing to trash her in Washington circles that he can get a job with one of the other 2012 presidential candidates.
Schmidt has an ideological axe to grind against Palin as he has made it very clear that he very much opposes religious and social conservatives (LINK). Schmidt supported McCain when he was the poster child for the so called “moderate lets get along and play nice with Democrats that we know full well are corrupt” Republican. The type of Republican that voters have tossed out of office for two elections in a row.
Palin is anything but that type of Republican.
Sarah Palin outed and very publicly tore down corporate corruption ring that owned much of the Republican Party machine in Alaska. Much of the Republican machine in Alaska still hates her for that (LINK, 2). While some Republicans talk about “naming names” Palin fights corrupt people in her own party fearlessly and ruthlessly. If Governor Palin is ever President Palin you can expect to see some Republicans and Democrats being carted off in handcuffs.
Palin used her overwhelming popular support to force very tough new ethics laws in Alaska and she made real cuts to state government spending. Palin cut off the money train for plenty of the corrupt in Alaska, especially in the so called competitive bidding process that lent itself to cronyism before the reforms (like why it is she stopped that bridge project in Ketchikan – LINK). These are not the kind of reforms a big government wing of the GOP would like to see implemented, because they have gotten wealthy just talking about them and doing the opposite. The prospect of a Palin presidency is bad for them because she means business.
Schmidt, as the Politico article link above makes clear, is very hostile to Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard. The Weekly Standard is a very influential conservative publication that holds Republicans who talk one way and govern another to account. The Weekly Standard was quite favorable towards Governor Palin’s record in Alaska.
It is not enough that Sarah Palin is the embodiment of everything the corrupt, big government wing of the GOP opposes, because there are some in the GOP who are very dedicated to those ideals as well. They fear her because Palin has demonstrated the ability to generate larger crowds than Obama has on campaign events and has also proved that she is a fund raising machine the likes of which the Republican Party has never seen. They have to destroy her now, if they can, because if Sarah Palin hits the stump in earnest she will be able to outspend her opponents by real margins and that is what the smear campaign against her is all about.
By the way, notice how her detractors never talk about her accomplishments as Mayor and Governor? They never get into policy that she has pushed for and executed. Think about it.
UPDATE – Former McCain staffer Patrick Hynes (2) comments:
And what did the lovely Governor of Alaska do to deserve this morning thrashing? Um … she had the gall to be the subject of a Vanity Fair hit piece by Todd Purdum.
That’ll learn her.
Look, I worked on the McCain campaign. Palin had her shortcomings, but she also brought some incredible strengths to the campaign. And perhaps the McCain staffers who continue to trash the governor are deflecting attention away from how remarkably screwed up and dysfunctional the operation was even before the Palin pick. What I don’t understand is this: Why would anyone hire a bunch of campaign staffers after watching how viciously they are attacking their former employer?
UPDATE II – National Review concludes it was Schmidt too – LINK.
UPDATE III – Tammy Bruce commentary –
UPDATE IV – Glenn Beck commentary –
Another reason why John McCain should not have been nominated…
…and why we should not let “the establishment” and the conventional wisdom choose our nominee.
John McCain wants NATO/UN etc (read US) to respond militarily in Syria. The situation is portrayed as a crazed dictator indiscriminately slaughtering his own people who want democracy – and that description is a load nonsense if their ever was one. We were told the exact same thing about Libya and Egypt, and as soon as we helped the Muslim Brotherhood take over the freedom crowd vanished instantly. The Muslim Brotherhood is now murdering Christians in Egypt, murdering black Africans in Libya, imposing Sharia Law and abusing women. The now Muslim Brotherhood controlled Egypt is sabre rattling at Israel
The dictators in the Middle East kept the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Qeada’s at bay. Mubarak was critical to maintaining the Israeli/Egyptian Peace Treaty and many of the worlds terror groups want to replace the Arab dictators with Sharia inspired regimes.
Now President Obama is arming the Middle East to the gills, including modern M1 battle tanks to Egypt in spite of the fact that the new authorities are engaging in Taliban like behavior such as attacking peaceful Coptic Christians with armored military vehicles.
If our entire policy is designed to undermine Israel’s security it explains why Obama was not interested in helping the Iranian freedom movement.
There has been every indication, as Prof. Niall Ferguson (video) pointed out as the Egyptian protests began in early 2011, that the so called “Arab Spring” is being coordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
With all of this information now known so publicly, Senator McCain’s advocacy of Syrian intervention is not only irrational, it aids our enemies and Israel’s enemies in the middle-east.
Related:
Prof. Niall Ferguson Blasts Obama and MSNBC on Egypt – LINK
Former head of CIA “bin Laden Unit”: Libyan rebels are like the Taliban – LINK
My Concerns About the Operation in Libya & Egypt – LINK
Analysis: Obama proposes $800 million in aid for the Muslim Brotherhood – LINK
Islamic militants receive two-thirds vote in Egypt – LINK
AP: Egyptian Women March Against Abuse by Military – LINK
It’s official, Egypt is a disaster – LINK
Marxist Left allies with Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Middle East – LINK
Libya’s transitional leader says Islamic Sharia law will be the “basic source” of all law – LINK
Dinesh D’Souza: What Makes Obama Tick (video)
Mitt Romney Opposed the Contract With America… (video)
This is a disaster. Political science text books make it clear that what Newt accomplished with the Contract With America is one of the greatest acts of political genius in history…and Mitt is on the wrong side of it.
Thom Hartmann: Newt is right about the Supreme Court
Aside from the brief tangent into cookdom where Hartman says that Justices Scalia, Alito, and Thomas want the Supreme Court to run your lives, (actually in countless speeches they say that the court was never meant to be five of nine judges making decrees on how our society is run) this video is spot on and it is what I learned when I took Constitutional Law at IU under Judge Allen Sharp.
Thom Hartman:
I agree with Newt Gingrich. Not about politics, of course. But, Newt is right about the Supreme Court. And progressives should pay attention. On this, Gingrich agrees with former President Thomas Jefferson – and most of the other founders of this country. Let’s break it down. First, Newt’s assertion that the Congress can pass laws that limit the powers and behavior of the Supreme Court. The Constitution, in Section Two of Article Three which establishes the Judiciary, does give Congress the power to define and limit what the Supreme Court can and can’t do.
Here’s the exact language -“[T]he Supreme Court shall have appelate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.” Yes, that’s what the Constitution says – in plain black and white. If Congress disagrees with – for example – the Citizens United decision, or the Bush v. Gore meeting – they can simply pass a law that says that the Supreme Court has overstepped its authority and that’s the end of that.
Why, you may ask, did the Founders write it this way? The answer is really simple. They wanted the greatest power to be closest to the people – and Congress is up for election every two years. It’s the body in our representative democratic republic that is closest to the people. It’s where they wanted most of the power, which is why it’s defined in Article One of the Constitution – the first among equals. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in an 1820 letter to Mr. Jarvis, who thought Supreme Court justices should have the power to strike down laws, “You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy….The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal… I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves.”
Please read the Constitution. Nowhere in it does it say that the Supreme Court can strike down laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. Nowhere. And for the first fourteen years of our Republic, the Court never even considered the idea. As Newt pointed out, Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78 -“[T]he judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever….It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power; that it can never attack with success either of the other two.”
But in 1803, a hard-right-wing Chief Justice named John Marshall ruled, in a case named Marbury versus Madison, that the Supreme Court could strike down laws as unconstitutional. President Jefferson went apoplectic. He wrote that if that decision wasn’t challenged by Congress: “[T]hen indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de so [a suicide pact]. … The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they may please.” But Marshall and the Court backed down, somewhat. For the next twenty years, he never again ruled a law unconstitutional. He never again said that a few unelected Judges were the Kings of America, with nobody who had the power to undo their decisions. But that’s what Scalia and Thomas and Roberts and Alito want you to believe. They can make George W. Bush President, without any appeal. They can make money into speech, they can turn corporations into people, and the rest of us have no say in it.
And they’re wrong.
It’s not what the Constitution says. We don’t have kings in America, and it’s time to seriously debate and challenge the doctrine of Judicial Review – the claim by the Court itself that it has that power. Jefferson wrote – “The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine our Constitution… I will say, that ‘against this every man should raise his voice,’ and, more, should uplift his arm.” Why? Because, Jefferson said, “For judges to usurp the powers of the legislature is unconstitutional judicial tyranny….One single object…will entitle you to the endless gratitude of society; that of restraining judges from usurping legislation.” The power of We The People should be with the People and their elected officials, not 5 lawyers who have claimed the right to rule over every other branch of government.
Somebody tell Congress to wake up!
Santorum, Reagan, Obama and Satan…
Rick Santorum was attacked for saying that Satan has targeted America. Rick Santorum isn’t alone.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s mentor Saul Alinsky dedicated his book, “Rules for Radicals” to Satan:
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: From all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”
As Reagan himself put it, “We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin.” Reagan dared to use the “J” word, inserting a distinctly Christian claim: “There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.”
Reagan’s speech came at 3:04 p.m. on March 8, 1983 in the Citrus Crown Ballroom at the Orlando Sheraton Twin Towers Hotel. The audience was the National Association of Evangelicals. He began by thanking all those present for their prayers, saying that their intercession had “made all the difference” in his life. He cited his favorite quote from Lincoln, about being driven to his knees by the conviction he had nowhere else to go. He then commended the role of religious faith in American democracy. “[F]reedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted,” Reagan maintained. “The American experiment in democracy rests on this insight.” He said the discovery of that insight was the “great triumph” of the Founders. Indeed it was.
Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.
Jeff Bell: Social Conservatism Wins Elections in Key States
Who is Jeff Bell?
Mr. Bell, 68, is an unlikely tribune for social conservatism. His main interest has always been economics. He was “an early supply-sider” who worked on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns of 1976 and 1980 and Jack Kemp’s in 1988. In 1978 he ran an anti-tax campaign for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey, defeating Republican incumbent Clifford Case in the primary but losing to Democrat Bill Bradley.
Even now his day job is to advocate for the gold standard at the American Principles Project. But he’s been interested in social issues since the 1980s, when “it became increasingly clear to me . . . that social issues were beginning to be very important in comparison to economic issues,” in part because “Reaganomics worked so well that the Democrats . . . kind of retired the economic issues.”
Social conservatism, Mr. Bell argues in his forthcoming book, “The Case for Polarized Politics,” has a winning track record for the GOP. “Social issues were nonexistent in the period 1932 to 1964,” he observes. “The Republican Party won two presidential elections out of nine, and they had the Congress for all of four years in that entire period. . . . When social issues came into the mix—I would date it from the 1968 election . . . the Republican Party won seven out of 11 presidential elections.”
The Democrats who won, including even Barack Obama in 2008, did not play up social liberalism in their campaigns. In 1992 Bill Clinton was a death-penalty advocate who promised to “end welfare as we know it” and make abortion “safe, legal and rare.” Social issues have come to the fore on the GOP side in two of the past six presidential elections—in 1988 (prison furloughs, the Pledge of Allegiance, the ACLU) and 2004 (same-sex marriage). “Those are the only two elections since Reagan where the Republican Party has won a popular majority,” Mr. Bell says. “It isn’t coincidental.”
Even without immediate gains among minority voters, Mr. Bell sees social issues as the path to a GOP majority in 2012. They account for the George W. Bush-era red-blue divide, which Mr. Bell says endures—and, he adds, red has the advantage: “There was one state in 2000 that Bush carried that I would say was socially left of center, and that was New Hampshire,” the only state that flipped to John Kerry four years later. “By 2004, every state—all 31 states that Bush carried—were socially conservative states.” Those states now have 292 electoral votes, with 270 sufficient for a majority.
By contrast, not all the Kerry states are socially liberal. “The swing vote in the Midwest is socially conservative and less conservative economically,” Mr. Bell says, so that “social conservatism is more likely to be helpful than economic conservatism.”
The roots of social conservatism, he maintains, lie in the American Revolution. “Nature’s God is the only authority cited in the Declaration of Independence. . . . The usual [assumption] is, the U.S. has social conservatism because it’s more religious. . . . My feeling is that the very founding of the country is the natural law, which is God-given, but it isn’t particular to any one religion. . . . If you believe that rights are unalienable and that they come from God, the odds are that you’re a social conservative.”
Read more HERE.
Dr. Mary Grabar: Teaching George Washington When Professors Aim to ‘Stop Santorum’
This is one of the most important columns you may see. Read every last word.
In an age and time when I find most of my college students unfamiliar with the story of Adam and Eve or the origin of the phrase, “judge not lest ye be judged,” I enter discussions about religion with some caution. Almost universally my students do not believe that religious belief is necessary for morality, and seem to be offended by the very concept.
But when one discusses the speeches of our earlier presidents, as I do in my composition classes, it is necessary to address religion’s role.
So last week, as we discussed George Washington’s Farewell Address, I asked students to recall the major points he made. Because several of them had already studied the speech in high school, they listed points most emphasized by teachers: his cautions about foreign entanglements, factional discord, and debt. Not many recalled his injunction to use the Constitution as a safeguard against “internal enemies.” Only one recalled his reminder about the importance of religion.
Although it does not take up much of the speech, it is an important passage, and one worth recalling in today’s age when libertarian ideals seem to motivate most college students and when many conservative pundits caution us about focusing on social issues.
But Washington reminds us, as do the other Founding Fathers, of why the Constitution is necessary in the first place.
The Constitution is structured according to a vision of mankind as inherently flawed, as marked by Original Sin. This view of human nature is what sets apart those who established the longest-lasting Constitution from the utopian idealists who see human nature as essentially good. Those human beings who are flawed by selfishness or irrationality (as they see it) can be shaped by the right social and political forces—and woe to the man who resists the efforts by the utopian theorists to make him good! We have seen that in the death tolls of such schemes.
But in Washington’s view, because character alone cannot be trusted, a division of powers helps provide checks against branches of government and of individuals. Washington echoes James Madison.
Yet, even with such multiple safeguards and a contract that stands beyond the immediate interests of parties, Washington still reminds us of the importance of religion. He calls “religion and morality” the “indispensable supports” of the “dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity.” In fact, he implies that patriotism is impossible without “these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.” It’s a sentence I emphasize. I ask students if they agree. Of course not, they almost unanimously say. One does not need to be religious to be patriotic. One does not need to believe in God to be moral.
Washington continues: “The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.”
Notice that Washington calls on the “mere politician” to respect religion and morality. Washington then claims, “A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.” (It’s no wonder that moderns who ascribe to the notion that religion is a private affair that should be divorced from political life would rather forget George Washington or wipe him from the history books.)
Furthermore, Washington maintains that morality emerges from religion, as he asks a rhetorical question: “Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?” This leads to my question of why we ask those who testify in court to place their hands on the Bible. This inspires more looks of consternation among students who have been educated in the idea that any kind of insistence on religious faith is an expression of “intolerance.”
Washington finally ends that paragraph by stating point blank, “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
That is about as unequivocal a statement as one can get.
Earlier in the speech, Washington had cautioned about regional animosities. Reminding them of the common “religion, manners, habits, and political principles” they shared, Washington encouraged citizens to adopt the identity “American”.
This is where students are apt to point out the changes that have taken place in over 200 years. The United States is no longer as homogenous as it was back then, when the vast majority of Americans belonged to various denominations of Protestantism. Students echo the standard line about “diversity” that infuses our educational establishment. They parrot the notion that it is an expression of “intolerance” to state that our nation is based upon a common moral and religious foundation of Judeo-Christian principles.
Yet, in spite of their constant exposure to “diversity” and a “globalism,” students have almost no ability to place our form of government and society into a global context. I remind students of the historical fact that Christianity introduced the notion that all people are equal in the eyes of the Creator. I ask students about our most basic laws. Why are parents who abuse or kill their children prosecuted? After all, in Greek and Roman culture, the father had the prerogative of allowing his infant child to die of exposure. Why do we take care of our elderly, even beyond the point of their “usefulness” to us? After all, Eskimos and other primitive societies, simply abandoned the weak and elderly, sending them off on ice floes. Apparently, students today don’t hear about such practices, while they are constantly bombarded about the “social injustice” of our economic system.
So, why, I ask, do our laws follow this Judeo-Christian injunction against killing? Other primitive societies, and now professors of ethics, like Peter Singer at Princeton, do not see anything unethical about killing handicapped infants.
When looks of horror register on the faces of students when I tell them about Singer’s proposal to allow parents to kill handicapped children, I tell them that their recoil at the thought of killing babies indicates the fact that even if they are not practicing Christians or Jews they have imbibed the values of a Judeo-Christian culture that values life. Those like Singer, quite significantly, begin by rejecting the Bible, which provides the premise that life is sacred.
The professor who works in a non-tenured position, as I do, broaches such topics with trepidation, lest any student (often called the “customer”) complain to the administration.
But I was pleasantly surprised when several students told me how much they had enjoyed and appreciated the discussion about religion in Washington’s speech. One, who is a Hindu, stayed after class, to tell me this.
Yet, if and when they follow today’s political debates in the news, students are likely to hear attacks upon Republican candidates’ religiosity and lack of respect for the “separation of church and state.” This is especially true about Rick Santorum who has been most outspoken about the importance of religion in public life.
In the classroom students are likely to hear views like those of Georgetown University Professor Jacques Berlinerblau, who charges Republicans with “secular-baiting” in his blog at the Chronicle of Higher Education. He claims Newt Gingrich pioneered the genre and Mitt Romney took it a “milestone” in its “evolution.” It is Santorum, however, whom he charges with demonizing Secularism, by reminding audiences of the atheistic nature of the “’French Revolution, moving onto the facists, and the Nazis and the communists and the Baathists.’”
Instead of considering the historical veracity of Santorum’s statement, Berlinerblau attributes nefarious and crazy motives to Santorum: “It is easy, lucrative, and even pleasurable, to pulverize sinister Secularism. It rallies the base, secures contributions, and helps conservative voters focus on demonic (i.e., liberal, Democratic) forces possessing our political system.” Running with his theory, Berlinerblau assigns an all-or-nothing faith in “divine revelation,” as if Santorum imagines he has a direct line to God. Berlinerblau then posits that religionists like Santorum might hear different things from God and thus have no basis upon which to decide policies. Such “anti-secular rhetoric,” he maintains, is “at its core . . . a demagogic evasion” (italics retained).
After he has whipped himself up to making Santorum a dictatorial theocrat, Berlinerblau concludes ominously, “Santorum and others will keep baiting secularism, and evading difficult issues, until someone stops them.”
In class, it will be worth reminding students about how the French Revolutionists and the Soviet Communists did first kill all the priests and nuns. It will be worth reminding students of the freedom voters have in drawing upon religious principles when they exercise their right to vote—in spite of many professors’ desire to simply “stop” people of religious faith, like Rick Santorum.
Study: Network Morning Shows Are Trashing Republicans and Trumpeting Barack Obama in Campaign 2012
Via the Media Research Center:
Four years ago, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows celebrated the “rock star” Democrats running to replace George W. Bush, and no candidate set journalists’ pulses racing faster than Barack Obama. Now, after three years of high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits and an onerous new health care law, how are those newscasts covering Obama’s re-election campaign and the candidates vying to replace him?
To find out, Media Research Center analysts examined all 723 campaign segments which aired on the three broadcast network weekday morning programs from January 1 to October 31, 2011, using the same methodology we employed to study campaign coverage on those same programs for the same time period in 2007.
Four years ago, the network coverage promoted the Democratic candidates and cast their strong liberal views as mainstream. This year, our study finds the networks are disparaging the Republican candidates and casting them as ideological extremists:
Labeling:
– This year, network reporters have employed 49 “conservative” labels to describe the Republican candidates, compared with only one “liberal” label for President Obama.
– Four years ago, when Obama was a relatively unknown candidate, the morning shows also provided just a single “liberal” label to describe his ideology, and never once labeled Hillary Clinton, John Edwards or the other Democrats as “liberal.”
Agenda:
– By a 4-to-1 margin, ABC, CBS and NBC morning show hosts have employed an adversarial liberal agenda when questioning this year’s Republican candidates. But those same hosts’ questions for President Obama leaned in his direction, with mostly liberal-themed questions.
– Four years ago, questions for the Democratic candidates tilted by more than two-to-one to the left, a friendly agenda.
Tone:
– In 2007, Democratic candidates were regularly tossed softball questions. This year’s interviews with Republicans have been much more caustic, with few chances for the candidates to project a warm and fuzzy image.
– Despite the poor economy and low approval ratings, the morning shows continue to treat Barack Obama as more of a celebrity than a politician, airing positive feature stories about the President and his family — a gift not bestowed on the conservative Republican candidates.
During the 2008 campaign, the network morning shows acted as cheerleaders for the Democratic field. This time around, they are providing far more hostile coverage of the various Republicans who are running, while treating Obama’s re-election campaign to the same personality-driven coverage that was so helpful to the then-Illinois Senator four years ago.
If the real decisions in our democracy are to be in the hands of voters, then the news media owe viewers a fair and unbiased look at the candidates in both parties. That means asking the candidates questions that reflect the concerns of both sides — liberals and conservatives alike. And the syrupy coverage awarded year after year to the Democrats’ celebrity candidates in no way matches the pretense of journalists holding both sides equally accountable, without fear or favor.
Full Report Table of Contents
Introduction | Covering the Candidates: No Swooning Over Republicans | “Conservative” Republicans vs. Non-Ideological Obama? | Interviews: Helping Obama, Badgering the GOP
Formatted PDF Version (19 pages)
TRIFECTA: Appealing to “moderates” is not what wins elections
This video is a must see as it covers so much more than what I could place in the title.
Reagan’s Campaign Manager: Gingrich was one of “most important players and most loyal to Ronald Reagan”
Ed Rollins, National Campaign Manager for President Reagan, sets the record straight about Newt’s work with Reagan:
“I’m going to straighten it out once and for all: Gingrich was a very important congressional ally. Congressmen aren’t in the White House all day long, and they’re not basically giving advice. But he and Jack Kemp and Trent Lott and others were among 10 or 12 most important players and most loyal to Ronald Reagan. At the same time, Mitt Romney was an independent and he was not on the political scene at all. It’s stupid argument. They ought to be talk about this future, not the past.”
Art Laffer: Why Gingrich’s Tax Plan Beats Romney’s
Art Laffer is the economic genius behind the Reagan Recovery where 8 of the top 10 economic indicators showed almost unending growth for two decades.
Read every last word carefully before you vote.
Art Laffer at the Wall Street Journal:
If we judge both leading contenders in the Republican primary, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, by what they’ve done in life and by what they propose to do if elected, either one could be an excellent president. But when it comes to the election’s core issue—restoring a healthy economy—the key is a good tax plan and the ability to implement it.
Mr. Gingrich has a significantly better plan than does Mr. Romney, and he has twice before been instrumental in implementing a successful tax plan on a national level—once when he served in Congress as a Reagan supporter in the 1980s and again when he was President Clinton’s partner as speaker of the House of Representatives in the 1990s. During both of these periods the economy prospered incredibly—in good part because of Mr. Gingrich.
Jobs and wealth are created by those who are taxed, not by those who do the taxing. Government, by its very nature, doesn’t create resources but redistributes resources. To minimize the damages taxes cause the economy, the best way for government to raise revenue is a broad-based, low-rate flat tax that provides people and businesses with the fewest incentives to avoid or otherwise not report taxable income, and the least number of places where they can escape taxation. On these counts it doesn’t get any better than Mr. Gingrich’s optional 15% flat tax for individuals and his 12.5% flat tax for business. Each of these taxes has been tried and tested and found to be enormously successful.
Hong Kong, where there has been a 15% flat income tax on individuals since 1947, is truly a shining city on the hill and one of the most prosperous cities in history. Ireland’s 12.5% flat business income tax propelled the Emerald Isle out of two and a half centuries of poverty. Mr. Romney’s tax proposals—including eliminating the death tax, reducing the corporate tax rate to 25%, and extending the current tax rates on personal income, interest, dividends and capital gains—would be an improvement over those of President Obama, but they don’t have the boldness or internal integrity of Mr. Gingrich’s personal and business flat taxes.
Imagine what would happen to international capital flows if the U.S. went from the second highest business tax country in the world to one of the lowest. Low taxes along with all of America’s other great attributes would precipitate a flood of new investment in this country as well as a quick repatriation of American funds held abroad. We would create more jobs than you could shake a stick at. And those jobs would be productive jobs, not make-work jobs like so many of Mr. Obama’s stimulus jobs.
Tax codes, in order to work well, require widespread voluntary compliance from taxpayers. And for taxpayers to voluntarily comply with a tax code they have to believe that it is both fair and efficient.
Fairness in taxation means that people and businesses in like circumstances have similar tax burdens. A flat tax, whether on business or individuals, achieves fairness in spades. A person who makes 10 times as much as another person should pay 10 times more in taxes. It is also patently obvious that it is unfair to tax some people’s income twice, three times or more after it has been earned, as is the case with the death tax.
The current administration’s notion of fairness—taxing high-income earners at high rates and not taxing other income earners at all—is totally unfair. It is also anathema to prosperity and ultimately leads to the situation we have in our nation today.
In 2012, those least capable of navigating complex government-created economic environments find themselves in their worst economic circumstances in generations. And the reason minority, lesser-educated and younger members of our society are struggling so greatly is not because we have too few redistributionist, class-warfare policies but because we have too many. Overtaxing people who work and overpaying people not to work has its consequences.
On a bipartisan basis, government has enacted the very policies that have created the current extremely uneven distribution of income. And then in turn they have used the very desperation they created as their rationale for even more antibusiness and antirich policies. As my friend Jack Kemp used to say, “You can’t love jobs and hate job creators.” Economic growth achieved through a flat tax in conjunction with a pro-growth safety net is the only way to raise incomes of those on the bottom rungs of our economic ladder.
When it comes to economic efficiency, nothing holds a candle to a low-rate, simple flat tax. As I explained in a op-ed on this page last spring (“The 30-Cent Tax Premium,” April 18), for every dollar of net income tax collected by the Internal Revenue Service, there is an additional 30¢ paid out of pocket by the taxpayers to maintain compliance with the tax code. Such inefficiency is outrageous. Mr. Gingrich’s flat taxes would go a lot further toward reducing these additional expenses than would Mr. Romney’s proposals.
Mr. Gingrich’s tax proposal is not revenue-neutral, nor should it be. If there’s one truism in fiscal policy, it’s this: Wasteful spending will always rise to the level of revenues. Whether you’re in Greece, Washington, D.C., or California, overspending is a prosperity killer of the first order. Mr. Gingrich’s flat tax proposals—along with his proposed balanced budget amendment—would put a quick stop to overspending and return America to fiscal soundness. No other candidate comes close to doing this.
Do not apply “perfection tests” to candidates
by Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton
This perfection double standard could apply to any candidate, but since Newt Gingrich is the subject of the current news cycle he will make a fine example.
Like many people, Newt’s ideology has changed over the years. Reagan’s influence changed the ideology of a great many. Did you know that Charles Krauthammer and George Will both opposed Reagan?
I see many people on FaceBook, blogs, and message boards blasting a candidate for saying something nice about a Democrat in 1972, while engaging in pretzel logic justifying their own candidate’s recent imperfections. By that standard every candidate is disqualified including President Reagan.
Ronald Reagan campaigned for FDR and Truman. So by the standard applied to Newt Gingrich this week Reagan was unfit to serve as a Republican.
Michelle Bachmann campaigned for Jimmy Carter.
Rick Perry was Texas Chair for Al Gore for President.
Zell Miller was a life long Democrat before he spoke at the Republican Convention against John Kerry as the Keynote Speaker.
Dennis Miller used to be a Democrat. David Horowitz, a conservative icon in every sense of the word, used to be a full fledged Communist radical.
I see many people posting videos of Glenn Beck criticizing Newt, but Beck cannot meet the standard that he applies to Newt Gingrich because Beck was a liberal alcoholic just a few years ago by his own admission.
I have particularly noticed this “perfect conservative consistency standard complete with a 20/20 hindsight rider” used against Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum by supporters of Mitt Romney… yes that is right Mitt Romney, who of course has a record that isn’t nearly as conservative as the other two.
On line and in other communications I have seen more and more Romney supporters get so caught up and emotionally charged with the anti-Newt media narrative that they are ready to vote for:
The guy behind RomneyCare over the man behind the Contract with America (Newt), America’s premier social conservative (Santorum), and the best job-creating governor in America (Perry – but he just dropped out), all of whom would also be more electable.
The “perfectionists” are selectively and conveniently applying a standard no candidate can meet. They are making the perfect the enemy of the good as evidenced by a recent Romney narrative “Newt supported Rockefeller in 1960’s” line. Really guys… the 1960’s?
The propaganda from those who oppose TEA Party conservatives and newly involved independents is designed to target the sensitivities of those TEA Party conservatives – by using that tactic those who are far less conservative have TEA Party activists attacking the candidates that would actually govern more conservative.
When Santorum started going up in the polls what did Romney and his attack dogs call him in ads – a Big Government non-conservative who was contrary to the Reagan Revolution. The Ronbots ran with it and spouted a similar narrative.
At first Rick Santorum was too conservative and now he is akin to Nancy Pelosi… many TEA Party activists are being lead about by the nose with these false narratives that are so brilliantly designed to target their sensitivities.
As a trained propagandist myself, I am like the magician who shows you how the other guys “made it disappear”.
One can be certain that Mitt Romney and President Obama have hired a team people all with similar training to what I have. Their propaganda is focus-grouped to be tested to generate exactly the narratives I am explaining to you here. The tactics and psychology of communication they use IS that sophisticated. You need to be as aware of this as possible. And make no mistake, even educated conservatives who believe they are informed are as easily influenced by negative ads and attitude change propaganda as anyone.
Mitt Romney is attacking candidates far more conservative than he is for not being perfectly conservative throughout history and voters are falling for it…. and emotionally investing in it with zeal.
But Chuck, Romney can get independents and is more likely to win….
Besides the fact that the political strategy just outlined was the political strategy of Gerald Ford, Bush 41 vs Clinton, Bob Dole and John McCain… and it is precisely that strategy that Reagan opposed; just who are these “Independents”??
In the 2010 elections, in 9 of the top 10 presidential swing states, women and Catholics voted for GOP/TEA Party candidates in the largest numbers since the 1984 Reagan 49 state landslide. Woman and Catholics are the two most notorious 50/50 swing voters.
So let me ask you. Were those swing voters responding to a moderate message of not being too conservative? Were they responding to “lets not be too strident in our opposition to Obama” (That is a Romney quote by the way)? Or were they responding to the TEA Party message of Allen West, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin?
Newt’s early previous statements, which I will freely admit are all over the place, do cause one to pause, but policy is where the rubber meets the road. not statements. Look at the policy heavy lifting Newt got done for conservatives.
While some are content to vote for the man who continues to defend RomneyCare and government mandates; I am more inclined to vote for an imperfect man who passed the Contract With America, balanced the federal budget, cut taxes, grew the economy, and passed Welfare Reform.
Byron York: What really happened in the Gingrich ethics case?
Washington Examiner Byron York:
Given all the attention to the ethics matter, it’s worth asking what actually happened back in 1995, 1996, and 1997. The Gingrich case was extraordinarily complex, intensely partisan, and driven in no small way by a personal vendetta on the part of one of Gingrich’s former political opponents. It received saturation coverage in the press; a database search of major media outlets revealed more than 10,000 references to Gingrich’s ethics problems during the six months leading to his reprimand. It ended with a special counsel hired by the House Ethics Committee holding Gingrich to an astonishingly strict standard of behavior, after which Gingrich in essence pled guilty to two minor offenses. Afterwards, the case was referred to the Internal Revenue Service, which conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter. And then, after it was all over and Gingrich was out of office, the IRS concluded that Gingrich did nothing wrong. After all the struggle, Gingrich was exonerated.
Reminder: Clinton IRS Exonerated Newt Gingrich
All this stuff about disgrace and such… well …. guess what…
Best Reagan clips from 1980 Carter debate
Leftist Media Jumping At Newt’s Ex-Wife, Covered Up John Edwards and Juanita Broaddrick While Not Covering Obama’s “Failures”
Hey elite media….what happened to “it’s just sex” and “sex doesn’t matter”?
ABC is accusing Newt of having wanted an open marriage…. just like Bill and Hillary Clinton. Everyone knows they have an open marriage so where was the firestorm? Where was it when Hillary ran in 2008? They didn’t even live together for how many years?
Of course this is coming from an elite media who knew all about how John Edwards was cheating on his cancer stricken wife and said nothing until the National Enquirer caught Edwards red-handed.
How many years ago did Newt and Marianne get divorced? If memory serves it is over 12 years. So why is this big news and Bill and Hillary are held up as virtuous by the elite media?
Well besides the fact that what Marianne said is likely not true, my point is the hypocrisy. The elite media and the left will lie or do anything to trash us with one standard, and yet proclaim that the same standard is a virtue if the person has a D by their name.
Paula Jones got some media play because her case went to the Supreme Court and Gennifer Flowers got some play when she posed nude. The elite media tried to cover up Monica Lewinsky but Matt Drudge found out. The Lewinsky affair would have come out anyway as Paula Jones’ lawyers had found out about her through the discovery process.
[Editor’s Note – we would rather make no reference to Miss Lewinsky, but in this case we had to. Good editorial judgment is important and the facts indicate that Miss Lewinsky was the victim of a very lopsided power relationship. She should be allowed to live this down and enjoy her life in peace. We wish her well.]
There were also reported affairs with actresses Sharon Stone, Barbara Streisand, Gina Gershon. There are also numerous other affairs and sexual assaults, such as Kathleen Willey (who got one interview at CBS) and others that were just not mentioned such as Dolly Kyle Browning, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and the rape of Juanita Broaddrick (who got one interview with NBC’s Lisa Myers and that was it).
Where was the media frenzy and the planning to release the interview at a key electoral time? What happened to “it’s just sex” and “sex doesn’t matter” elite media??
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